What’s more difficult than directing a hugely complex musical number with a small army of singers and dancers? How about directing a hugely complex musical number with a small army of singers and dancers who aren’t actually present when you shoot the scene?

Ewan McGregor couldn’t have been happier to get the role of singing candelabra Lumière in Disney’s new live-action version of Beauty and the Beast (out March 17), which stars Emma Watson as Belle and Dan Steven as the Beast.

The first time Sir Ian McKellen worked with filmmaker Bill Condon, he played famed Frankenstein director James Whale in the 1988 drama Gods and Monsters, for which the renowned British thespian scored a Best Actor Oscar nomination. In their second film together, last year’s Mr. Holmes, McKellen portrayed legendary fictional detective Sherlock Holmes.

As a child, Emma Watson watched Disney’s 1991 animated classic Beauty and the Beast more times than she can recall and regarded the film’s book-obsessed heroine, Belle, as a role model. “There was something about her indignation and rebelliousness which I really loved, to be honest,” she says. “It troubles her that she doesn’t necessarily fit in, but I think she really holds close to her heart her dreams and her aspirations. She was definitely a role model.”

It may not seem like a fairytale that you have to wait until next year to see Beauty and the Beast, Disney’s live-action remake of its beloved 1991 animated classic, which stars Emma Watson and Dan Stevens. But the happy ending to this sentence is that you can now see a behind-the-scenes clip about the film.

Stanley Tucci is the latest actor to sign on to Disney’s live-action Beauty and the Beast. Tucci will be portraying Cadenza the grand piano, a new addition to the story who is described as “a neurotic maestro.” Emma Watson, Dan Stevens, Luke Evans, Ian McKellen, Emma Thompson and Ewan McGregor also star. Bill Condon is directing. </span

Emma Watson, most famous for playing Hermione in the Harry Potter films, will play another book-loving heroine: She announced on Facebook that she will star as Belle in Disney’s upcoming live-action adaptation of Beauty and the Beast.

When director Bill Condon asked Laura Linney to star in his new film A Slight Trick of the Mind – starring Ian McKellen as an aging Sherlock Holmes – he hadn’t a clue that he was tapping into Linney’s childhood fantasies.